Ep 298: Menage a Teev

Till Death Do Us Part, All in the Family and Kingswood Country were all the same show in three different nations. We take a look at the similarities between them and try to work out what they say about the different countries at the times they were made.

There’s an I Don’t Buy It and a discussion on Sherlock.

John was sick when he recorded the bits that we weren’t there for, so please excuse his raspy tones.

We’re sorry for the delay on getting this episode to you. Really. It turns out that Austin is quite the town for distractions and slow internet connections. Or no internet connection at all.

4 Comments

I watched All in the Family the other day for… about five minutes, before I had to turn it off and go outside and drink some orange juice to get the taste out of my mouth. I think what made me so uncomfortable is- look, I know very little about the sociopolitical situation at that time, but I’ve grown up in a post-9/11 North America and I hear people on the news saying similar things and actually believing them, and I couldn’t help but feel that we were supposed to sympathise and be on the side of this vile man saying horrific things. I get that, for people in their late forties and early fifties, it’s a nostalgic thing, but for me it was just culture shock. (Seriously: how did they get away with saying those things on tv? Was that time period just that bad?)

Just to point out that Johnny Lee Miller, star of the US “modern Sherlock Holmes” thing, was co-lead in a recent theatre production of Frankenstein with none other than Benedict Cumberbatch. In fact, they shared the lead to such an extent that they traded off the roles of Victor Frankenstein and the Monster – swapping the part several times during the run.

Oh, and … the discussion of All in the Family did not discuss that, for some reason, it’s best known in Australia as the original that “Maude” was a spin off for – Maude was playing forever in the 10am slot when I was growing up, while I don’t think I ever saw a single All in the Family re-run…

Just wondering if you’re planning on reviewing Elementary at any point?

For the record, “I think this Lucy Liu one is, she happened to be free at the time” is kind of the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard all week. They “just happened” to cast a woman of colour as one of the most iconic white male Everyman characters in literature?

Anyway, would be cool to hear your thoughts on the show, which has some limitations in the crime-of-the-week department but is doing some really interesting things with the Sherlock–Watson relationship, in my opinion.